Valve today announced the addition of new components which it says are critical to the development of best-in-class VR systems for device manufacturers.

The new technology is meant to complement the free license available for Valve's room-scale VR tracking technology, and includes an optical system, manufacturing and calibration tools, and software that aims toward an end-goal of a better end-user experience.

Those new features are meant to allow manufacturers of SteamVR compatible head-mounted displays to include increased sharpness and head-tracking capability, and giving those manufacturers access to custom lens calibration and correction software for any using the SteamVR technology suite.

I'm really glad - honestly. When I look at that simple graphic above even, I think to myself "that's exactly how I want to play video games as a busy adult". I'd like to strap on a headset (hopefully thereby tuning out my family entirely. Aww yah!) and hold a couple of wands in my hand. When I look at the most fun games I've played this year, games like Divinity Original Sin 2, I couldn't imagine how much better that cRPG would be in a VR environment. Whew boy, I can't wait for this stuff to take off! My son is 5 right now. By the time it does take off, he'll be a teenager and the VR thing will practically parent him for me. I'll just set him up with a VR headset, the sensors, a couple of magic wands, and a mini-fridge up in his room with Mt Dew, Doritos, Hot Pockets, and Destiny 6.5 to play.

"Best-in-class VR system". That's cool. What are the classes again?

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Imagine if the working class told the oligarchy to build their own houses and make their own coffee...

I'm really glad - honestly. When I look at that simple graphic above even, I think to myself "that's exactly how I want to play video games as a busy adult". I'd like to strap on a headset (hopefully thereby tuning out my family entirely. Aww yah!) and hold a couple of wands in my hand. When I look at the most fun games I've played this year, games like Divinity Original Sin 2, I couldn't imagine how much better that cRPG would be in a VR environment. Whew boy, I can't wait for this stuff to take off! My son is 5 right now. By the time it does take off, he'll be a teenager and the VR thing will practically parent him for me. I'll just set him up with a VR headset, the sensors, a couple of magic wands, and a mini-fridge up in his room with Mt Dew, Doritos, Hot Pockets, and Destiny 6.5 to play.

"Best-in-class VR system". That's cool. What are the classes again?

This post is dripping in sarcasm.

But yeah, at my age i feel silly strapping on a VR set and only do it when no one is home. But im old, the kids will love this stuff. For me, it will always be a novelty.

I think the classes are Prototype and CV1. We have 2 classes so far...why no talk of curved screens or much better FOV yet? I guess because no one is really impressed with them just yet. A local overstock/return store here has 4 VIVE's

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I had my Rift unpacked for about 6 months and let it occupy all of my USB 3.0 ports during that time ('cause it works much better with the bandwidth of 3.0... it will tell you this during setup and give frowny faces if you hook up parts to USB 2.0).

Later on I ordered the controller dohickies but never used them. ED had functionality (mainly the galactic map) that I could NOT get to ever work right with the headset and HOTAS so I always had to go back to the monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

Every time I did I realized how much more crisp my monitor looked over the horrid DPI view I was getting from VR even though the lens were supposed to be running at super duper rez. This wasn't screen door effect. You can eventually get use to that. There was so much room between the pixels it was more like chicken wire thank screendoor effect.

Then you notice things like how you are always adjusting the goggles and straps to change focus because Rift didn't actually add much in the way of physical adjustment dials or anything. You have to physically move the entire headset to bring the lenses into alignment. You find yourself spending a lot of time in the calibration too. And nothing is ever clear unless the exact center of the lens is directly in the front of your eye. No peripheral vision at all.

A little to the left, right, up, or down and you are in blur territory. Even just shifting your eyes to peek without moving your head will put you in blur town. It's worse than wearing glasses which at least give you some clarity left and right if you shift your eyes that way. Which I hope you don't wear glasses because the Rift isn't great for people who wear glasses. The thing is pretty confining and the lenses are pretty close to the face. Plus it tries to keep a tight-ish seal around the face piece.

It's not horrible or anything, just not the best use case. The nice part is you can probably calibrate it to show you the VR world perfectly (as well as possible anyway) to correct for your vision.

Anyway, back to straps and adjustments...

So you clamp down the straps to make sure the gatdamn thing doesn't move on it's own when you do twist your head.

And when you clamp down like that the lenses get fogged up so you have to take the fucking thing off again to wipe down the lenses and go through the whole fucking manual recalibration process again when you put the fucking HMD on.

All for what amounts to visuals probably exceeded by the DPI on a 15 year old dot matrix printer that tracks you head movement.

To say I regret spending my $900 (after the touch controllers, which I never even bothered to sync up because it look like they required yet another port to plug in a second motion sensor) would be an understatement.

Thanks for clearing that up - I thought he was living the American Dream!

Kidding aside, I believe it's good news that a company with ties to the gaming industry continues working on VR. The HoloLens is quite obviously not geared towards gaming, Oculus has lost at least some credibility when they sold out to Facebook, and the laughable "improvements" Sony made to their second PSVR kit show that they're not going all-in (and probably would prefer to return to their TV glasses of the early 2000s). While Valve is not a cutting-edge developer anymore, they're deeply invested in the games business, so they should be more motivated to produce viable results than, say, Samsung with their GearVR.

I personally really enjoy VR as an experience and as an enhancement of a few very specific game genres - namely racing and flying. I'm seriously considering getting a PSVR for the next "Ace Combat" title, and the hour or so I spent on "DiRT Rally VR" was hilarious. However, I haven't seen a single game so far that I would buy specifically for VR (i. e. that would not work without it). There are no killer applications, as far as I'm concerned, and the hardware is too expensive and cumbersome to kick off a "Wii Sports" or "Guitar Hero" trend.

If/when we can get a high-res, lightweight, wireless headset with controllers allowing room-scale VR for less than the price of a console (meaning 200 dollars or less), then things will get interesting. For this to happen, though, it will take another few years of R&D, so I'm glad Valve is sticking with it.

__________________Buying games and playing games are two different hobbies.

I enjoy VR for certain types of games, especially enclosed environments like puzzle adventure games, horror, etc.. but really it needs about a 4x's increase in DPI to be acceptable for most people, it's just too fuzzy. Of course that means a hefty increase in GPU power as well.

The space requirements are also higher than what they state in my experience as well. They say you need a clear 3x3 area for seated or standing play (not room scale) but in my experience you need more like 4-5' square. Basically you need to be able to spread your arms out and not hit anything on either side all around you and for most adults that's a lot more than 3'. That also assumes you don't move at all from the center spot, and you will.

I think the classes are Prototype and CV1. We have 2 classes so far...why no talk of curved screens or much better FOV yet? I guess because no one is really impressed with them just yet. A local overstock/return store here has 4 VIVE's

They're co-opting terminology used in the automotive industry because it sounds good, I think.

The phrase means something when you're talking about vehicles, because there are different classifications of vehicles out there; saying you have the "best-in-class" luxury sedan, for example, is a legitimate statement and would mean something very different from having the "best-in-class" half-ton pickup truck.

Stating you have the "best-in-class" VR setup doesn't really mean a damn thing.